Sep 17, 2026 · 29 min · 5 segments
We'll talk with Kim Pearman-Gillman and Dale Silha about Spokane's new Novara Energy Institute. Avista and Zero Emissions Northwest give Inland Northwest businesses a chance to test EVs before they…
The Inland Northwest faces some interesting energy and water-related challenges.
For example, will the region continue to be able to generate enough hydropower to meet the demand, especially if companies build a bunch of data centers? How will the region's continued drought affect water supply, even in places like the Spokane County Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, which is considered stable? Three Spokane area companies have created the Novara Energy Alliance to consider these problems and find solutions.
So if we're looking out to the horizon, we're looking to the future, not looking behind us.
We're building off of what's come before us, respectful of that, but saying there's new stuff that needs to get done.
These are people working together, right? Let's bring people together to solve the most pressing energy issues.
Silla says Novara aims to take a big picture look at issues that should be solved by the region as a whole.
Really thinking about some of the energy challenges that we have today around affordability, reliability, and just the impact of increasing demand across the region.
compounding that with weather impacts, electrification, and so many things contributing to this means we need big solutions and we need a lot of solutions in a pretty short time frame.
We're envisioning Novara in being a combination of a bridge builder, bringing people together, and more than a convener, a catalyst to actually get people together, but initiate action to ultimately create innovation, research, but not just theoretical, but building out bench scale tests, building pilots, and then actually enable scaling to happen to make measurable impact within the energy industry.
Who do you want to convene? Who needs to be at these tables for these conversations?
And we also want to note that we're also talking about the related water challenges because a lot of this goes hand in hand.
So we want to bring everybody to the table that's willing to be part of what I call the party of the willing.
Who wants to help solve the big, audacious problems of the future that are energy and related water? Our community thrives based on how energy does and how water does.
And so it's like all the big users should be involved, as well as all the big providers and those that work in the in-between space.
the innovators that can say, hey, we could do this in a more efficient way.
The Inland Northwest faces some interesting energy and water-related challenges.
For example, will the region continue to be able to generate enough hydropower to meet the demand, especially if companies build a bunch of data centers? How will the region's continued drought affect water supply, even in places like the Spokane County Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer, which is considered stable? Three Spokane area companies have created the Novara Energy Alliance to consider these problems and find solutions.
So if we're looking out to the horizon, we're looking to the future, not looking behind us.
We're building off of what's come before us, respectful of that, but saying there's new stuff that needs to get done.
These are people working together, right? Let's bring people together to solve the most pressing energy issues.
Silla says Novara aims to take a big picture look at issues that should be solved by the region as a whole.
Really thinking about some of the energy challenges that we have today around affordability, reliability, and just the impact of increasing demand across the region.
compounding that with weather impacts, electrification, and so many things contributing to this means we need big solutions and we need a lot of solutions in a pretty short time frame.
We're envisioning Novara in being a combination of a bridge builder, bringing people together, and more than a convener, a catalyst to actually get people together, but initiate action to ultimately create innovation, research, but not just theoretical, but building out bench scale tests, building pilots, and then actually enable scaling to happen to make measurable impact within the energy industry.
Who do you want to convene? Who needs to be at these tables for these conversations?
And we also want to note that we're also talking about the related water challenges because a lot of this goes hand in hand.
So we want to bring everybody to the table that's willing to be part of what I call the party of the willing.
Who wants to help solve the big, audacious problems of the future that are energy and related water? Our community thrives based on how energy does and how water does.
And so it's like all the big users should be involved, as well as all the big providers and those that work in the in-between space.
the innovators that can say, hey, we could do this in a more efficient way.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
